1 Simple Thing Podcast | Build a Better Business by Building a Better You!

Welcome to the 1 Simple Thing Podcast, where we help you "build a better business by building a better you."
5 days a week we feature guests who are experts in life...marriage and family, health and fitness, emotional spiritual and mental health. You know...the things that we often overlook, but can have a dramatic impact on our quality of life.
Each day you’ll get 1 Simple Thing you can do to start down the road to change. No big list, no unattainable goals. Just 1 Simple Thing.

Amber De La Garza shares a framework she recommends in planning your day. It helps you capture everything and make sure you are fully prepared for your next day. When you have a plan, you are more capable of getting the results than if you just haphazardly start your day. Put the five Daily Planning Pavers into practice to help you start your day with a plan to get the most out of your time and focus.

Amber De La Garza talks about how a rapid fire power hour can get you back on track. While we are working on our highest value activities, we can become distracted by small tasks that tend to pop up randomly. She says the solution is the Rapid Fire Power Hour. It’s a time you schedule in your week to batch together all those little tasks that come up, so you don’t need to stop what you are doing and change your focus.

Amber De La Garza shares some smart strategies to reclaim your time. Life is full of distractions and other tasks that can take away our focus and attention from what matters most. So we want to make sure that we reclaim our time in three ways:

Eliminate activates.

Manage interruption.

Minimize distractions.

Amber says it’s not enough to be organized and productive if we’re not productive on the right things.

Amber De La Garza talks about the secret multiplier of the TIME = MONEY formula…which is your personal productivity. Time equals money when you spend it investing your time in your highest value activity which moves you closer to your goals, or vision of success. When you think about your time as money, you will invest it a little differently than you normally do. Invest your best time into your best activities.

Jeff Spadafora says most people fail to follow through because they try to do it (whatever it is) alone. We come up with plans and dreams, then find out implementing them is harder than we think, especially over the long haul. People have more fun talking about life purpose and joy than they actually want to do it. It’s hard. It takes intentionality, and many times you have to live outside of your comfort zone. The key is to get another person, a coach, in your life to help you stay accountable to push through the tough times.

Jeff Spadafora talks about giving ourselves permission to dream. Often, people get stuck once they start to dream because they may have a mindset that says, “If a revenue stream doesn’t materialize immediately the dream get’s shut down.” That’s a huge mistake and based in fear. Jeff says you can explore these dreams without quitting your day job. Instead, create the margin to explore your ideas and play them out, a little bit at a time. When you discover your calling, there is usually a way to attach a revenue stream to it. Don’t think you have to go from “quit your job” today to some fantasyland that has no income tomorrow. But, at the same time, don’t shut down dreaming if you can’t see how it will pay the bills by next week.

Jeff Spadafora says we’re just too busy with our work and life responsibilities, and many people do not really stop to think about the trajectory of their life. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not a life worth living.” Just creating space to think clearly and strategically about your life like you would about your business is really important.

Some people just need to make some tweaks in their life to get back into the flow of “joy.” But there are others who find out they need to make some more significant or radical adjustments. The reason why margin is so critical is not just so that you can think, dream, and strategize, but so you can then turn those ideas into action. And if we don’t intentionally make the time to proactively explore things, talk to different people, and get into different environments, we’ll never move on from where we are.

Jeff Spadafora talks about how much of the dissatisfaction we feel with our lives comes from a dissonance between our values and our actual lives. It’s different for each person. For some, it might be the mid-life crisis: The red convertible. Quit my job. Trade-up for a trophy wife. Some opt for the big, drastic change, but it’s not for everybody. Often there’s just a subtle discontent with how we are living. That’s the time to get in touch with our values, get clarity on whether we’re living according to those values, then making some strategic, intentional adjustments.

Cort Dial says bliss is not necessarily happiness, but it’s the experience of being alive, being fully human. It’s when you’re totally being present in the moment and experiencing what it means to be alive. Bliss can exist in tragedy or joy, or any other state of being. But the key to being blissful is you choosing to be present in the moment. When a person becomes intentional and decides to live a life in their bliss, the universe and circumstances seem to line up to support them.